The knowledge of the Self: An exploration among friends

The knowledge of the Self is the only true knowledge and defies all knowledge at the mind level.

Turjuman: Why?

Magdi: It’s the only permanent knowledge. Mind knowledge changes with the weather.
The flat earth is revealed to be round. Time and space are revealed to be one continuum according to Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Only the knowledge of the Self, the revelation of the eternal and universal nature of consciousness is permanent.

Nayan: The greatest of all delusions is the conviction that knowledge is not a delusion. Sri Dattatreya, in Tripura Rahasya

Magdi: Indeed. The knowledge of the Self is not a delusion and is the only true knowledge.

Nayan: Knowledge is of the mind. Awareness is of the Self. The word “knowledge” implies a mental acquisition, something to work towards, to make an effort to attain. Whereas Awareness is intrinsic, and needs no effort to acquire. On the contrary, it reveals itself more clearly when effort, or the urge to make an effort, subsides.

Ted Thompson: The word “knowledge” need not be defined so narrowly. Awareness means knowingness. Self-Knowledge and Self-Awareness mean the same thing.

Darryl: I don’t agree Ted. Self knowledge is doubtless comprehension that one is self aware. It’s a fact that is overlooked by nearly all of humanity.

Magdi: The doubtless knowledge that one is self aware is the Self knowing itSelf since it is the Self that is aware and thus the only true knower/awarer.
The Self is pure awareness free of vasanas.
Being established as the Self is knowing that you are aware and that this awareness is universal and non personal and when this knowingness no longer wavers.
You ( consciousness/awareness) no longer identify with any form under any circumstance.

Ted Thompson: One of the purposes of poetry is to help words break out of jail. One only knows awareness by being awareness. Words can point to awareness but cannot delimit the limitless. Awareness is the only knower. The mind exists in a realm of illusion.
Awareness is experienced and known when the attention returns to its home in the heart, far beyond all thought, sensation, breath or subtle subliminal movement. Once awareness is recognized as the Self, then it is known by being that, in all times and places. If the Self is always masked with thoughts and perceptions, how can one know its true face???????
All pointers exist in the mind only. One must discover what the pointers point to.
One must go beyond all human pretense to unveil the self. In nakedness of spirit, in emptiness of mind, illusions collapse into the heart and the Self is revealed, Self-Aware, Self-Luminous, Self-Existent and forever after, Self-Revealing in every moment.
It is the Source of all things.
All the wisdom in the universe is contained in That.
Truth is its very nature.
To know it is to be it.
It is what one is.

Darryl: Humans have no boundaries? So a human body includes all other forms in creation? Words have no boundaries? Any word refers to what it refers and not what it does not. A word – IS a boundary. Awareness is only aware of self knowledge – when it takes place in the intellect / mind.

Ted Thompson: Sarvam kalvidam Brahma. All this is Brahman, including humans, bodies, words. What was thought to be limited beings and objects, all turn out to be Infinite, Boundless Awareness. All boundaries dissolve into Brahman. Awareness is the essence of Self-Knowledge.
The mind is born and the mind dies. Self-Awareness is Unborn. The limited, indirect knowledge of the Self that takes place in the mind has a beginning and so will have an end. Liberation is the Eternal, Changeless Essence of Awareness. It is never something new to be obtained. All the scriptures and teachings can do is to point out what Awareness is not. When all illusions are seen through, what is left is the Light of Awareness, Self-Shining, Self-Known, Self-Revealed, Self-Evident.